Record controlled machine



Jan' 4, 1944- w. L. Ewls ETAI.

RECORD CONTROLLED MACHINE Filed Jan. lJ 1943 Patented Jan. 4, 1944UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 2,33s,1ss RECORD coN'moLLEn MACHINEv.Milicai'on January l, 1943, Serial No. 471,076

Claims. '(Cl. 164-112) This invention relates to record perforatingmachines, particularly machines of the type used to perforate the wellknown Hollerith accounting ord perforating and like machines employing acarriage as a means of feeding the record medium past perforatingdevices or other recording instrumentalities.

An object is to provide a carriage retarding device having a moreuniform control over the travel of the carriage than can be obtainedwith the usual centrifugal carriage brake device or dash-pot retardingdevice of which many varieties have been used in machines of the typementioned.

An object is to provide a carriage retarding device which has small bulkand few working parts. y

Other objects of the invention will be pointed out in the followingdescription and claims and illustrated in the accompanying drawing,which discloses, by way of example, the principle of the invention andthe best mode, which has been contemplated, of applying that principle.

In the drawing:

Fig. 1 is a planr view of a portion of a record perforating machineembodying the present invention. A

Fig. 2 is a large scale view, partly in section, of the retardingdevice.

Fig. 3 is a vertical section on the line 3-3 in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1 shows the present invention applied to the well knownInternational manual electric key punch which is commonly employed toperforate Hollerith accounting and statistical record cards to representaccounting and statistical data. Since this machine is Well known only aVery brief general description will be given of it. It will beunderstood that the disclosure of the present invention herein asapplied to aforesaid machine is purely by way of illustration and thatthe invention may be applied to other perforating machines and to othermachines employing car-l riages and operated under the same conditions.

The reference numeral IIJ designates the base of the machine which isprovided with a shallow groove Ia or guideway of the same width as theheight of the Well known Hollerith record card so as to guide the cardlongitudinally of the base I0 and along its top surface. On the righthand end of the base III is located a card magazine generally designatedI I having the blank cards I2 which are to be perforated. The bottomcards in the magazine II are located in the shallow groove Illa. andsuitable mechanism is provided to advance a `card lengthwise from themagazine II along the groove la to the left as a preliminary to thecommencement of card perforating operation. At the center of the machinethere is provided a manual keyboard I3 which controls the punches forperfor-ating the record card to represent data. The cards advance fromthe magazine II and are moved to first column punching positionindicated by the card I2a shown in dotted lines in Fig. 1 and from thispoint the card to be punched is conveyed to the left in Fig. 1 by meansof the card carriage.

This carriage consists of a bar I4 which is supported and guided forhorizontal movement from right to left in Fig. 1 by a support bar I5suitably mounted on the base Ill, the bar I4, which comprises thebackbone of the carriage, being provided With suitable rollers Illawhich run on the top edge of the bar I5. This bar I4 is also providedwith suitable teeth Which cooperate With the usual escapement mechanismto space the card I2a. one column at a time, each column of the recordcard being punched and advanced t0 the next column position in a wellknown way by aforesaid escapement mechanism.

Secured to the bar I4 are the arms I6 to which are pivotally connectedcard feeding fingers I1 which engage the ends of the card and cause itto be transported to the left in Fig. 1 when the carriage is moved inthe same direction. The carriage comprising the bar I4, the arms I6, andthe feeding fingers I'I is constantly urged to the left (Fig. 1) bymeans of a suitable spring motor not shown. The base I0 is provided witha deeper groove IUD to receive the ends of the lingers I1 to insure thatthe card I2a. will be properly engaged by the iingers I'I. In the use ofthis machine in punched accounting and statistical record cards it isoften necessary to skip a major portion of a record card Withoutperforating any data. For this purpose there is provided reither anautomatic skip bar controlling mechanism which need not be shown hereinand a skip key I8 which enables skipping to be effected manually. Duringsuch skipping movements the carriage usually acquires considerablemomentum since for such operations the usual escapement pawls or dogsare released from the carriage for free movement of the carriage by thespring motor. Since the carriage is purposely made relatively light inweight to insure a rapid feed of the carriage between punchingoperations the carriage acquires considerable momentum which is suddenlychecked when the escapement pawls are reengaged with the rack at thepoint where punching is to be resumed or the card removed by hand at itsextreme left hand position (Fig. 1).

Such carriages are commonly provided with some form of retarding devicewhich comes into play when the carriage reaches too great a speed tocheck the carriage and momentarily slow it down sutliciently to reduceshock when it is finally arrested. Such devices, however, do not fullysatisfy the requirements since they are more commonly built on theprinciple of the centrifugal governor and the carriage must acquire considerable speed before the governor begins to function. On the shortermovements of the carriage the governor may not function at all.Furthermore such devices do not smoothly check the carriage and bring itto a stop but tend to allow the carriage to increase in velocity up to apoint and then maintain the velocity uniform until the carriage ispositively stopped. Thus. if punching is to be terminated at the middleof the card and the card fed to the extreme left hand position in Fig. 1prior to its removal the carriage will be traveling with maximumvelocity when it strikes the final stop i9 which determines the lefthand limit of travel.

Dash-pots of the conventional sort do not prove entirely suitablebecause of the long travel of the carriage requiring the largecompression ratio between the limits of carriage movement unless thedash-pot is made very large in diameter in relation to the travel of thepiston. On ac count of their bulksuch dash-pots are not feasible whenbuilt in the conventional way with a small orice and large compressionchamber. Such dash-pots tend to function only on very long movements ofthe carriage and have relatively little eifect on short movementsbecause of the inability to build up suillcient air or oil pressure tomaterially eiect the speed of the carriage.

According to the principles of the present invention there is provided aretarding device in the form of a dash-pot having a double action toenable a cylinder having a high compression ratio to be used to avoidbulk and at the same time to obtain sufilcient retarding action with arelatively long stroke of the piston of the retarding device.

The retarding device consists of a cylinder 20 composed of a long tubeattached to the base l by means of suitable clamps 20a Vwhich may takethe form of straps screwed to the base. 'I'he right hand end (Figs. 1and 2) of the cylinder 20 is permanently closed bymeans of a cylinder.head in the form ofA a plug 2i having a valve v screw 22 for regulatingthe flow of air to the interior of the cylinder through two air passages2Ia in the plug 2|. The left hand end is provided with a plug 23 havingan air passage 23a and a valve screwA 24 and acting as a stuiling boxfor the piston rod 25. A screw-23h removably secures plug 23 to thecylinder 2li.

Near the middle of the cylinder 2li there is provided an orifice or port20h which is located a little to the left of the middle of the spaceinside cylinder 20 between the plugs 2| and 23. At its left hand end-thepiston rod 25 is connected to a bracket 26 attached to the left hand armi6 of the card carriage. At its right hand end the piston rod 25 isprovided with a piston 21 and a cup washer 28 of leather which is heldessaies a shoulder in the piston rod, the right hand end of the pistonrod being reduced to form said shoulder and threaded to receive a nut25a which clamps the piston 21, the cup washer and the washer 2! to theend of the piston rod.

The orifice or port 26h is located so that when the card carriage isclose to its mid-position the orlilce will be closed by the cup washer28 or -by the piston 21. `'I'he adjustment of the piston rod 25 is notcritical so long as the port 20h is closed when the carriage is in themid-position. In order to illustrate the functioning of the retardingdevice it will be convenient to use an extreme condition which willseldom be met in practice. Let it be assumed that the carriage is in thecolumn 1 or extreme right hand position, as in Fig. l, and that it isdesired to skip to the column or extreme left hand position. Depressionof the skip key I8 or the usual release key 30 causes the usualescapement pawls to be released and allows the carriage spring motor todraw the carriage to the left as far as it will go as determined by theusual final stop I9. During the iirst half of the stroke of the carriagethe air trapped in the left hand end of the cylinder 2n is free toescape through the orifices 20h and 23a and offers little obstruction tothe movement of the carriage. However, air will pass through thepassages 21a only to the extent permitted by the valve screw 22 with theresult that a progressively increasing vacuum will be created in thespace to the right of the piston 21 which will have a retarding eiectupon the carriage. Thus, as the momentum of the carriage tends toincrease, the vacuum likewise will tend to increase, and a checkinginfluence will be exercised on the carriage tending'to prevent excessivespeed of the carriage at the midpoint of the carriage travel,

At the mid-point of the carriage movement the oriiice 2Gb will be closedby the cup washer 28 and prevent further escape of air from the lefthand end of the cylinder 20 except to the limited extent controlled bythe valve screw 24 with the result that the air inthe left hand end ofthe cylinder will start to compress as the carriage passes itsmid-position. Eventually a port 20h will again be opened and permit airto more rapidly enter the right hand end of the piston to break thevacuum therein. However, by this time the air in the left hand end ofthe cylinder will have become partly compressed so that the tendency ofthe carriage to accelerate due to the relieving of the vacuum will notbe very great. With continued movement of the carriage to the left, theincreasing compression in the left hand end of the cylinder, however,reduces the speed of the carriage and prevents it from moving at anexcessive rate. During this period the right hand end of the cylinderhas practically no eiect in retarding the carriage. However, this ismore than oset by the increased compression in the left hand end with'the result that the carriage will be gently stopped in the last columnposition.

The condition just described represents the worst possible conditionthat could be encountered in which the carriage would ordinarily bepermitted to build up maximum velocity and arrested in the last columnposition at the point in which the carriage ordinarily has its maximumvelocity when permitted to run free from the extreme right handposition. In practice it will seldom be necessary for the carriage tobetween the piston 21l and a washer 2! abutting 75 travel continuouslythroughout its entire stroke,

asaaiss but skipping will be for relatively shorter distances which mayoccur anywhere ln the stroke of the carriage or several such movementsmay occur during the punching of a single card. If the skippingmovements take place in punching the left hand half of the card, that iscolumns l to 40 of a conventional 80 column card, the left hand half ofthe retarding device will virtually have no effect, but the retardingofthe carriage will be eiected by the vacuum induced in the right handhalf of the cylinder 20. On the other hand, skipping movements for theright hand half of the card will be controlled by the compression of airin the left hand half of the cylinder. During the punching of cardcolumns when the carriage is moving intermittently and relatively moreslowly the pressures in the two halves ofthe retarding device will tendto equalize with the result that the retarding effect Will be relativelyslight on short movements of the carriage but will increase inproportion to the number of columns skipped.

One advantage of the retardingdevice is that it is possible to make thecylinder very long and l narrow and to connect the piston rod directlyto the carriage. This greatly reduces the bulk of the retarding deviceand reduces the number of working parts since otherwise it would benecessary to use a large cylinder with either a mechanical leveragereducing linkage or some form of reducing gear to get the same effectwith an ordinaryV dash-pot.

By making the retarding device double acting, that is operating upon thecombined eiect of compression and vacuum, the retarding action isdistributed more evenly over the stroke of the piston without thenecessity for using a dash-pot having a large piston diameter inrelation to the stroke to avoid too great an extent of compression, thatis a high compression ratio. For example, if it were attempted to getthe same effect with an ordinary single acting dash-pot consisting of acylinder of the same dimensions in relation to the stroke as shown inFig. 1, the compression ratio would be so great that upon a longcontinuous travel of the carriage the pressure would build up to such ahigh value that the carriage would move very sluggishly or not at all atthe end of the skipping movement. This would greatly slow down themachine and oiset the benet derived from skipping.

On the other hand, in order to keep the size of the dash-pot withinreasonable limits to avoid too high a compression ratio, it will benecessary to use some form of reducing motion to enable the short strokedash-pot of small size to be operated by the relatively long strokecarriage. This, of course, will mean a multiplicity of links and leversor gearing which will add considerably to the cost of manufacture of thepunch and introduces additional parts which must be lubricated and whichare liable to be sluggish in action due to inertia, dirt, gummy oil, andimproper lubrication. Furthermore more complicated mechanical linkagesor gearing will wear with time and require frequent adjustment of thedash-pot to offset the wear which always tends to make moving partsoperate more freely.

In the past it has been customary to use rack and pinion operatedcentrifugal braking devices, such as the well known shot governor andsimilar forms of governors, but the long racks which must be used forthis type of governor are expensive to make and tend to bind or becomesluggish in action due to dirt accumulating on the rack and gumming ofthe oil which must of necessity be used to lubricate the rack andpinion. Also, governors of the centrifugal friction brake type tend towear at the friction producing surfaces and lose their braking eiect,requiring frequent adjustment or replacement,

In the present case the effects of wear can be easily compensated byadjusting the valve screws 22 and 24 since the effect of wear is to makethe piston operate more freely permitting leakage past the piston whichcan be offset by reducing the passage of air through the orifices 2lcand 23o. Since the vacuum and compression inthe cylinder 20 both tend toexpand the cup washer 29, a considerable amount of wear can occur in thecylinder 20, the piston 2l, and the cup washer 28 before replacement ofany of these parts is necessary to restore the effectiveness of theretarding device.

While there have been shown and described and pointed out thefundamental novel features of the invention as applied to a singlemodification it, will be understood that various omissions andsubstitutions and changes in the form and details of the deviceillustrated and in its operation may be made by those skilled in theart, without departing from the spirit of the invention. It is theintention, therefore, to be limited only as indicated by the scope ofthe following claims.

What is claimed is:

l. In combination with the carriage and frame of a record perforating rother oilce machine having a carriage, a retarding device comprising acylinder and piston, one of which is connected to the carriage and theother to said frame, and a piston attached to said piston rod andclosely iltting said cylinder, said cylinder having vents at both endsand a vent at its middle whereby the space interior of said cylinder onone side of said piston acts as a.vacuum chamber to check the speed ofthe carriage by vacuum during one portion of the travel of the carriageand the space on the other side of said piston acts as a compressionchamber to check the carriage by compression during the remainder of thetravel of the carriage, said middle vent permitting free ow of air intoor out of the respective chambers to render one chamber less effectivewhile the other is operative.

2. In combination with the carriage of an office machine, a carriageretarding device including a cylinder and a piston traveling in saidcylinder, one of which elements is connected to the carriage and theother relatively xed, said cylinder veing vented at its ends to permitthe intake and discharge of air from the ends of the cylinder, saidcylinder also being vented at its middle to permit a freer flow of airfrom one chamber during the first half of the stroke of the piston andto permit a free i'low of air in the other half of the cylinder afterthe carriage hasv said cylinder having a relatively high compressionratio and being vented at both ends and at the middle to reduce thecompression at one side of the piston to enable one half of the cylinderto function to retard the carriage by vacuum alone while the carriage ismoving half of its stroke and to permit the remaining portion of thecylinder to function by compression alone during the remainder of thestroke of the carriage.

4. In combination with the carriage of an ofiice machine, a uid pressureretarding device for said carriage including a cylinder and piston, oneof which is actuated by said carriage While the other remains xed, saidcylinder having two duid pressure chambers the total length of which atleast equals the travel of the carriage with direct actuation of saiddevice by the carriage without intervening motion reducing means, saidcylinder being considerably smaller in diameter` than the total travelof the piston so as to have a high compression ratio and ventedintermediate its ends to reduce the compression ratio on either side ofthe piston to enable the carriage to move more freely than would bepermitted by a cylinder which is not vented intermediate its ends.

5. In combination with the carriage of an ofce machine, a retardingdevice of the iiuid pressure type including a cylinder and piston, saidcylinder being closed at both ends and vented to permit escape of fluidfrom one chamber While permitting entrance of iluid at the other chamberand also being vented intermediate its ends to increase the ow of iuidinto or out of one chamber at a rapid rate While the remaining chamberfunctions to retard the carriage by compression or vacuum according tothe extent of travel or the piston.

WIILIAM L. LEWIS.

